Clones and copies?

SillyOctpuss said:
I've read about a company contracting a Chinese factory to build their design. After the initial fun of pedals was finished the Chinese factory did another run for themselves with different UV printing on the enclosures but the pedal was exactly the same.
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Chinese companies have been doing that will all sorts of products from cups and coolers to electronics.
 
SillyOctpuss said:
I've read about a company contracting a Chinese factory to build their design. After the initial fun of pedals was finished the Chinese factory did another run for themselves with different UV printing on the enclosures but the pedal was exactly the same.
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Happens all the time.
I have a little (pretty shitty) 5-band EQ. Blue enclosure, "Fender" logo (wtf?). The very same (and it really is the very same, I compared them 1:1) EQ exists from Mooer and Fame (german "MusicStore" house brand, comparable to Thomann's Harley Benton).
The Mooer was €49, Fame €39 and Fender €29.
 
Sascha Franck said:
Happens all the time.
I have a little (pretty shitty) 5-band EQ. Blue enclosure, "Fender" logo (wtf?). The very same (and it really is the very same, I compared them 1:1) EQ exists from Mooer and Fame (german "MusicStore" house brand, comparable to Thomann's Harley Benton).
The Mooer was €49, Fame €39 and Fender €29.
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I'm genuinely surprised the Fender branded item was the cheapest out of those.
 
newholland said:
i think, in a lotta ways, intellectual property is a piece of capitalistic bullshit. if a song can exist, it can be found and made... i know the argument is 'but people should be paid for their excellent songwriting'- but theyll do that shit anyhow cause we're tinkerers by nature.

pay for quality implementation and leave the songs in the public domain after their trademarks run out. half of those are for minor mods anyhow.
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Since I know you’ve talked about struggles with original music, would you still agree with what you said if I changed that single word?
 
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metropolis_4 said:
Since I know you’ve talked about struggles with original music, would you still agree with what you said if I changed that single word?
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i would not. i also dont believe that language nor music is a hardware store part though, nor a commercial object to be sold in the same way.

commerce and art are different to me- and while i totally get where youre coming from- especially coming from a working musician- that that line is sometimes blurry. but my complaint as a writer of music has more to do with evaporating audiences and venues for original music than intellectual theft or the capacity to profit from it. i suspect that few people are gonna steal my songs or ideas, but who knows? 😄

theyre also made of the same twelve notes.

but seriously- is the guy who invented the tube screamer still collecting? is the engineer who figured out the push pull 6l6 amp talked about at the dinner table? i mean.. we all become nothing but the collective output of musical humanity at some point.
 
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I don't buy pedals b/c everything I could want is in the Axe III. But I assume your question also applies to guitars.

I want to buy US-made guitars. The EBMM's I own are all very high quality, and if it was a case of not being able to afford them, I'd just buy fewer.

For me, it's an economy thing. I live in the US, so I want my money staying in the US (as much as is possible), so I try to make purchases based on that. I hate that a lot of my money goes to China, since we owe so much money to them. I have a "fear" that they may one day simply call our debt, and we'd be fucked, economically speaking.

I just feel overall your purchases should support the businesses where you live, first. Heck, if PRS made a model with specs I like, I'd buy from them, instead of from a company in, gasp, CA, since I live in MD. But they don't, so EBMM is my choice. (Plus, John Petrucci has given me SO much musical enjoyment, really the most of any musician, I like that some of my guitar purchase money goes to him.)

I also feel very strongly that if you designed a product, you should reap the benefits of said design (at least for a time period), and it's wrong for someone else to simply copy what you thought up, and sell that same product. It's a matter of ethics and fairness, imo.
 
I am a fan of the DemonFX clones. I presently have their "King Tone Duelist" and "Cornerstone Gladio Double Preamp" copies. They are both fantastic, inexpensive, and readily available pedals.

The originals are super pricey and not available. Seems like a no brainer. DemonFX FTW!
 
TSJMajesty said:
I don't buy pedals b/c everything I could want is in the Axe III. But I assume your question also applies to guitars.

I want to buy US-made guitars. The EBMM's I own are all very high quality, and if it was a case of not being able to afford them, I'd just buy fewer.

For me, it's an economy thing. I live in the US, so I want my money staying in the US (as much as is possible), so I try to make purchases based on that. I hate that a lot of my money goes to China, since we owe so much money to them. I have a "fear" that they may one day simply call our debt, and we'd be fucked, economically speaking.

I just feel overall your purchases should support the businesses where you live, first. Heck, if PRS made a model with specs I like, I'd buy from them, instead of from a company in, gasp, CA, since I live in MD. But they don't, so EBMM is my choice. (Plus, John Petrucci has given me SO much musical enjoyment, really the most of any musician, I like that some of my guitar purchase money goes to him.)

I also feel very strongly that if you designed a product, you should reap the benefits of said design (at least for a time period), and it's wrong for someone else to simply copy what you thought up, and sell that same product. It's a matter of ethics and fairness, imo.
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How do you feel that non of EB hardware or electronics is made in the USA and the wood is not from the USA either. Axe 3 is also 99% Chinese in components. I agree about the copyright protection period for intellectual property.
 
Eagle said:
What do you think of things like this;
View attachment 43544
There is no particular reason that this can’t be identical to the original for a lot less.
But ;
Intellectual Property.
Nobody makes their own components so in theory a copy can be exactly the same if researched properly.
Same layout same parts.
I personally only buy original’s unless they are out of production and/or a stupid pice.
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The only issue I have with it is the branding.

Intellectual Property in terms of technology is a human construct whose only purpose is to motivate people to design new stuff. Within the context of overdrive pedals...nobody is designing new stuff. And to the extent they are designing new stuff, it's not like the R&D costs are high. So "there is no particular reason that this can't be identical to the original for a lot less" is the same as saying "there's no reason the original doesn't sell for a lot less."

In this day and age, there is no reason to pay more than $50 on the classic overdrive pedal circuits.
 
Eagle said:
How do you feel that non of EB hardware or electronics is made in the USA and the wood is not from the USA either. Axe 3 is also 99% Chinese in components. I agree about the copyright protection period for intellectual property.
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Why do we always apply this so heavily to our guitar gear? The amount of guitar gear I buy is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less than the amount of home electronic crap, personal device crap, furniture, clothes, food (I'm DEFINITELY not going to be sticking to only stuff I can source locally in New England in January), etc....
 
Boudoir Guitar said:
Why do we always apply this so heavily to our guitar gear? The amount of guitar gear I buy is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less than the amount of home electronic crap, personal device crap, furniture, clothes, food (I'm DEFINITELY not going to be sticking to only stuff I can source locally in New England in January), etc....
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I wouldn’t. The USA can’t compete with China in manufacturing, atm and nobody is going to invest in order for it to catch up because it is never going to be competitive outside the home market.
 
Eagle said:
How do you feel that non of EB hardware or electronics is made in the USA and the wood is not from the USA either. Axe 3 is also 99% Chinese in components. I agree about the copyright protection period for intellectual property.
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Idk. What can you do? At least they're assembled by workers in the US.

It's probably the best choice I can make, the rest is out of my control. Do I like it? Not really, but we live in a global economy.

I think every time a major event happens, that allows us to buy goods "cheaper", or make our money go further (NAFTA, 2-earner households, e.g.), the economy eventually adjusts to that, and then most end up not really having much of a choice. Try to buy a SFH on one income these days. It used to be possible. Not any more.
 
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